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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To Slap This Woman Back?

294 replies

RightOldSlapper · 08/07/2013 16:52

I've nc'd for this as don't want it to follow me adoring but am a regular poster (Yoni, Pom Bears, Naice Ham, Wilf etc).

I'm not asking AIBU as I know I was but I'm asking to what degree was I unreasonable, say on a scale of 1 to 5 in regards to the following incident.

Yesterday, DS3 (aged 13) and DS4 (aged 9), were playing out in our street, with 6 other similarly aged children who live on the same street, DS3 being the eldest. They were not directly outside our house but around 8-10 houses down. There is a small junction in between, and while I recognise the residents in that area I certainly don't know them as well as my immediate neighbours. I am however very friendly with one of the others boys mum, who lives that far down.

I'd last seen them 20 minutes earlier having been checking on them every half hour. Anyway, at some point DS4 and a few of the other boys came running in saying that a woman up the road has hit DS3 and says she's going to kill him. I arrived to find this woman still shouting at DS3.

Apparently DS3 had fallen off his bike and over her very low front garden wall (max 2ft) onto her flowerbed. Apparently he had damaged her garden and crushed her cat. I could see no visible damage to the shrubs (no flowers). The cat was nowhere to be seen. It was an accident. She had been washing her car and had rushed over yanked him up, screamed at him and slapped twice; once on the top of the back and once across the face.

While I was there trying to resolve the situation she threatened to slap him again. Am not pleased with myself but I lost my temper and I grabbed her then hit her twice. I've been feeling guilty but not. Am quite conflicted, and am also quite shocked still at what happened, friends/family have said it was ok but I just wonder was it really that ok or am I totally irrational.

So yes how unreasonable was I?

I don't want to drip feed but I haven't written down all minutiae of this incident as I didn't want to start straying into Dostoyevsky territory. However I'm happy to provide further details if some of you feel its relevant.

OP posts:
aquashiv · 08/07/2013 23:37

I would involve the authorities for all sorts of reasons not least to show the children that sort of behaviour and person needs to be challenged and dealt but to retaliate with violence.
However, it has never happened to me I really do not honestly know what I would do if anyone hit my children

5Foot5 · 08/07/2013 23:55

She sounds like a nasty piece of work. If someone fell off their bike in to my garden, child or adult, I honestly think my first reaction would be to see if they were OK, not go ballistic and start shouting and slapping. With or without the involvement of the alleged cat.

I just don't know how I would have reacted in your place. If someone hit my DD I think I probably would go for them but thankfully I have never been in that situation to find out. I am certainly not criticising you.

We were about to have scones and jam for tea FFS
^ Loved this Grin

fuzzpig · 09/07/2013 00:03

I agree with the word 'unhinged' used up thread to describe her reaction to a boy falling into her flowers and supposedly a cat accidentally!

Ezza1 · 09/07/2013 00:07

I love playing crack the egg on the trampoline.

We have scones, jam and clotted cream and think we are posh.

Cats have 9 lives.

I think I would be too shocked to react initially as you did OP, I'm useless about thinking or acting on the spot. But who knows.

My AIBU would probably read "AIBU to still be pissed off a week later about woman whacking DS and to go round there with a shotgun now?" Which is worse as its premeditated.

And unless your DS is 20 stone plus I doubt that even if he did land on the cat it would have done much damage. My cats have been accidentally trodden on, fallen on, had things dropped on them over the years and they are ok. And STILL never learn and manage to constantly get under everyones feet.

IneedAsockamnesty · 09/07/2013 00:20

People who go around hitting children in the street under these sort of circumstances don't tend to be the sort of people that would be remotely bothered at all by a visit from the police and the resulting local resolution agreement.

Stuff like that only bothers decent folk

ComposHat · 09/07/2013 00:54

Goodness two women having a brawl in the street. I bet it was just like the ones they have on Coronation Street.

How delightfully common.

MarmaladeTwatkins · 09/07/2013 00:58

It is a shame. Think of us who only get to see things like this on pay-per-view Sky channels. :(

MidniteScribbler · 09/07/2013 03:29

I need to know if the fence he fell over was red or green. Not sure which neighbour we are discussing here.

mynameismskane · 09/07/2013 07:20

Op - please ignore all the pious twits on here who love to sniff from their high horse. Yanbu at all to hit the bitch. The only unreasonable thing is that you didn't hit here more...

I would report her though, she sounds like a right fucking freak. Hope your boy is ok.

BMW6 · 09/07/2013 07:43

This

AllYoursBabooshka · 09/07/2013 08:10

'Snot really common to fight though is it?

People of all classes have been beating the crap out of each other since the dawn of time.

Anyone for a duel?

FeegleFion · 09/07/2013 08:42

Babooshka I shall accept your challenge, as soon as you slap me across the face with your gentleman's glove, you cad!

Then we shall strip to the waist and fight like men! Wink

AllYoursBabooshka · 09/07/2013 08:52

I don't have any gloves but I will wallop you with my cat, least he forget this battle.

TweedWasSoLastYear · 09/07/2013 08:53

Big group of boys out in the street playing around and riding bikes..
No cat I know would be in the flower bed , they would slope off somewhere quiet for a sleep or ambush some baby birds

MarmaladeTwatkins · 09/07/2013 08:58

OP, if I'd been there I would have held your coat and shouted some words of encouragement.

This lot are boring. Nowt like a good scrap to sort things ahhhhhht.

pictish · 09/07/2013 09:07

You know...I'm all dead mature and restrained and stuff, but sometimes nothing says GTF like a smack in the face.

OP - pay no need to those on here telling you you are some sort of monster to be appalled at. You lost your temper when a stranger struck your child for no good reason. Shit like this happens, and maybe the fucking hag will think again before lashing out at local kids with her hands again.

Next time you see her, give her the finger.

dubstarr73 · 09/07/2013 09:15

I dont think yanbu at all.Theses type of people annoy me.Sooner or later she was gonna hit the wrong person and she did.I would have done the same thing op.Bet she will keep her hands to herself now wont she.

Pagwatch · 09/07/2013 09:16

Grin at scrapping thread.

Tbh I agree with what Jamie was saying.
I absoloutely get what everyone else has said and I would not criticise the OP in anyway - we act as we act when adrenalin and the urge to protect our child takes over.
But I can't quite join in as if this was a great result.
I honestly can't say I would hit a person who hit my child either. I am sure I would protect them/stand in front of them but I am just not sure I could attack someone.

I am honestly not being holier than thou. I don't want to criticise the op. but I can't think 'good job' either. But that really is just me tryingto examine how I would feel as the op. and I would feel as though I had stepped outside of who I think I essentially am.

LongTimeLurking · 09/07/2013 09:20

She assaulted your son..... It would be unreasonable NOT to slap her.

TeeBee · 09/07/2013 10:11

Meh, for me YANBU. I'd sooner you sorted it out yourselves than waste resources calling out the police. You gave her a taste of her own medicine. No one would hit my children twice.

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows · 09/07/2013 10:19

I would probably have lamped her, too. I know it's wrong, I'd feel bad afterwards, but at the time I suspect the red mist would descend and I'd react on instinct. I'd probably snarl a bit, too. No one hits my children

mynameismskane · 09/07/2013 10:45

Thank goodness for these few posts above that followed mine! See Op? Yanbu! X

HeadfirstForHalos · 09/07/2013 10:49

I am crying at "the cat will remember this". Grin

I have had cats all of my life too. One of mine recently got hit by a car (he was fine, just a little bruised), he still sunbathes in the middle of the road Hmm

HeadfirstForHalos · 09/07/2013 10:52

I am also laughing at the irony of the poster named "RockyBalboa" saying hitting is wrong.

spongebunnyfatpants · 09/07/2013 10:53

Wow OP I have to say that I think you showed real restraint, if some one had done that to my child I think the red mist would have descended and I would have sat them on their arse.

No one has the right to hit someone else's child regardless of what they have done and especially in this case as it was a complete accident.

You were protecting your child and although it wasn't good for him to see his mum involved in such an incident he knows you were doing it out of love to protect him.

The mothering instint is strong, I honestly wouldn't feel bad about it.